


gnr

by Thomas_Fooll



Category: Twenty One Pilots
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, First Time, Fucked up narration style, M/M, Panic Attacks, Suicidal Thoughts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-26
Updated: 2019-03-26
Packaged: 2019-12-18 08:06:54
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,119
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18245801
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Thomas_Fooll/pseuds/Thomas_Fooll
Summary: College AU about understanding and dog's corpse on a sticker. (Tyler, do you have a gun at home?)





	gnr

**Author's Note:**

> This is a translation from Russian, you can read the original one on: https://ficbook.net/readfic/5516433

"Sing me, cus' what can I change  
Being led by the shadow I own" ©Splin  
  
"I’ve got two faces,  
Blurry’s the one I’m not" ©tøp

"I've somehow overgrown this whole depression thingy, you know," Josh says this morning, and this sentence puzzles for a bit breaking the night-long silence that has lasted for a bit too long. "You constantly think about it," he opens his mouth and pours a spoonful of apple juice and cereal in there. "and that's kinda strange for me".

Small details of immense importance: Josh Dun pours juice into his bowl first and only then adds cereal.

"Yeah, I know, I'm kinda childish in this regard. Didn't grow out of this, I mean," Tyler says, staring down at his bowl. The rest of his own cereal is floating around its curvy sides, rising up and falling down in thin juice, reminding him of the lost children, just like those not wanting to grow up in Peter Pan, or like those in Less than Zero \- having grown way too fast.

Not wanting to grow up is closer for him.  
Not wanting to grow up- just like himself?  
  
God, there's so many things,  
how do I make it all in time?

"Nah, not like that, I have... I just have come to terms with it. You don't have to, you know, go the way I did".

It's hottish-cold May with its unbelievably irritating wild weather outside, Tyler thinks about all the things he has to do this summer.

Tyler thinks of when he woke up in his own house this morning and how there was another person sleeping on the couch in living room and how he was typing to a familiar message thread with his fingers trembling all over the buttons:

come, please, oh, god, come  
whisper creek, 3503  
  
-I_i

He's obsessed with these thoughts, yeah, God, obsessed.

It's hottish-cold May with this stupid Columbus's weather outside so when they go out fifteen minutes later there's still some fog crumbling away in those narrow alleyways of the neighbourhood; cold air covers their hands with shivers.

The bus they take on their way to college has a sticker on its windshield - a narrow blue ring with a blue circle in it. On the ring it says on top:

P O L I T E P E O P L E

On bottom:

P O L I T E, K I N D, L O C A L

In the blue circle there's a cut-out silhouette of a man in an army helmet and with a machine gun in his hands. Tyler shouldn't be that bothered, but he is. There's a dog beside the man ( _dog's corpse? tyler can't help thinking about it_ ). Silhouettes on the sticker glister in this dim May sunlight as the bus is getting closer. Tyler tightens his grip on his backpack's strap, Josh throws half-burnt cigarette away not even putting it out- Tyler looks at him almost blaming for it while they get on the bus and Josh just shrugs 'dude, shit happens'.

Bleached curls lightly scatter across Josh's face as cold air from A/C blows them away from their perfect previous spot. They curl into tight locks around the boy's head. In Tyler's mind they resemble tentacles of some sea creature. He immediately thinks of drawing a whole series of people with tentacle hair.

"What do you think", Josh starts, sitting down beside the window. Tyler gets in next to him, looks down the aisle. Someone behind them is really hungover but he doesn't see the passengers who could possibly smell like that.

Image of the sticker on the windshield bothers him even more, accompanied by the thoughts of his breakdown yesterday. Shivers go down his spine.

"Ty?" Josh pokes his side with an elbow, it hurts and somehow feels like a very offensive action, Tyler blinks away the images of the previous night and the dog's corpse; the whole bus smells of alcohol, festering flesh and Josh, and it should be the first time when he doesn't enjoy the way Dun's smell mixes with the others even in the slightest. He unconsciously moves closer to Josh. "Are you even listening?"

"No, sorry".

"Are you sure you'll be able to sit through Snow White's whole lecture?" Snow White is their teacher and, God, Tyler would sell his damned soul to stay home instead of listening to this prick, but the thought of having to write a myriad essays on Ancient Greek literature afterwards doesn't appeal to him a slightest bit.

He shakes his head, watching his own fingers crumbling up the fabric of his jeans that suddenly became oversize in a short month or so.

"Is this dog dead or is it just resting?" Tyler looks forward: the sticker is clearly seen above all the heads of the people before them. Josh twitches, looks the way Tyler does.

"Huh? Where?"

Tyler nods forward, trying not to look away. God, this dog makes him anxious.

"Ty?"

God, how can't you see it?!

"Ty, look away".

It _is_ dead, certainly, one hundred per cent dead, a corpse of a fucking dog on the fucking sticker, wobbling aroung with this fucking bus, and everything smells like alcohol fumes, yes, alcohol-fucking-fumes, God, Tyler covers his ears:

his heart is pounding somewhere near his temples and  
everything is loud.

come, please, oh, god, come  
whisper creek, 3503  
  
-I_i

i'm taking over  
my body

\- - -

He takes over his own body when it's already too late. Blood from Josh's nose drips onto the floor, and it's completely clear that he broke it. Josh gasps and takes big breaths through his mouth, and:

"My God".  
"I'm so sorry".  
"I'm an idiot".  
"I'm such an idiot".

All the people in the bus is staring at them, Tyler seems to have found the source of the alcohol smell - a man who looks like homeless or on the verge of it appears to be pretty interested in what's going on. Blood stains white t-shirt, pink tinted bleached hair stick to Josh's face like octopus' tentacles.

"Ty-"

That's so _dumb_ , and this dog is still dead on that sticker. _Polite people_ , yeah, man, right. Polite, kind, local.

"That's-"

Yes, that wasn't him. Tyler is embarrassed, Tyler is scared, Tyler let the lunatic one out. What'd Josh think of him now? Shame on him!

S H A M E O N H I M

hands for guns or guns for hands? sdnah rof snug ro snug rof sdnah

Dead dog on the sticker glints pitifully on the windshield.

"Later, okay?"

Tyler looks almost like he's pleading, that's necessary to keep himself calm.

"We need to go home, you're all covered in blood, Jishwaa".

They simply walk back through the half of the city just to get back to Tyler's place in complete silence. Tyler is scared, Tyler is embarrassed, yes, embarrassed like he has never been before.

God, so many problems.

Josh starts talking in the middle of bright quiet neighbourhood, just like the one Tyler lives in. Sunlight reflects off the white houses, the blood-stained t-shirt and Josh's bleached hair, still sticking to his forehead, and drowns in those intertwining tree branches, just like the Present drowns in the Past, and the Future drowns in the Chimerical. Josh starts talking:

"Okay, just for your own safety, do you have guns at home?"

Tyler looks down: the concrete has been rolled into the pavement in even parallel stripes. All the curbs are greasy from wax: muddy and shiny in this hot spring sun of this hottish-cold May with its fucked up weather. This should be the ' _skater kids_ ' type of the neighbourhood, he thinks to himself, and just to prove his thoughts a group of kids dash past them down the road. Some kid attempts a kickflip and falls down onto the dark asphalt, childish, a bit evil laughter fills the street. Tyler thinks of how in his childhood with a bunch of other kids from neighbouring houses he used to play basketball and dreamt of becoming a famous sportsmen. He smiles.

"Tyler, hell, stop it. Answer me".

Someone in those houses is making a cake. Sweet smell of apples and cinnamon reaches his nose, Tyler remembers of how a couple weeks ago his parents have invited him over for a family dinner, and there was an apple pie with homemade ice cream by Maddison. He swallows loudly.

"Tyler, fucking hell, look at me and answer!" Josh turns his head by the chin, and Tyler's attempts to avoid answering Josh's questions, well, shatter into small shards of metaphorical glass.

"Tyler, do you have a gun at home? That's all for your sake, please".

Yes, he _does_ have a gun at home. A pistol, even has a licence if needed, God, Tyler doesn't even remember when was the last time he thought about it. No, he doesn't usually have that in him, no, believe him. Dog's corpse image is still vivid in his mind, dancing around those white façades of the houses as blue spots.

A man with a machine gun, that's just like those Vietnam war memes on Twitter and Reddit, yeah. Helmets, machine guns, deaths.

"Josh, whatever happens, stay alive, okay?"

Josh blinks, staring at him. They are still standing in the middle of this horrid May sunlight, on this gray concrete pavement with its parallel scars left from the paver and traces of kids' skateboards on the polished, upgraded surface. Josh just blinks in his pure confusion, and Tyler thinks of dog's corpse on the sticker and the letters being:

P O L I T E P E O P L E

P O L I T E, K I N D, L O C A L

Joshua - with his tentacle-like bleached hair all stuck to his forehead, and a blood crust under his nose, and his red-stained stars on the yolk of his t-shirt - Joshua William Dun blinks because Joshua, well, has come to Tyler last night, Joshua tries his best to understand, Joshua, yes, supports his just because he, wow, cares (just like those few who are so far away - and that's the problem), but Joshua just doesn't understand, and he won't be able to anymore. That's the thing that one's mindset acquires one day, and then it goes away when you stop (because of growing up or some other reasons - acceptance, maybe?) questioning your destiny and fate. Your value. Something that allows you to find your own unique meaning and your life to lose its worthlessness.

"I mean, like, please, don't die before me, okay? It might all seem meaningless in the future, as I can die at any time, but if you ever want to go, then- well, don't. Your life will always have more meaning than mine".

Josh sighs and lets go of Tyler's chin. Slides his hands into his skinny black jeans' pockets, pulls out a lighter and a pack of cigarettes, lights one up. His red from blood-stains t-shirt crumbles up a bit at his chest, and dry blood particles fly everywhere: just like pollen from all those flowers.

Josh just continues to go forward and lets out even rings of smoke as his mind seems to wander somewhere else. Tyler follows him feeling exhausted and devastated, trying his best not to loiter, bright blue sky is being pierced by the white aircraft trace, and Tyler wonders what do pilots feel, being stuck between skies and land, being responsible for all those people on-board. They are stuck up there, and the mere thought makes Tyler nauseous and unwell.

\- - -

Josh pulls off this white t-shirt of his, all covered in those red washes, Tyler immediately throws it into a washing machine trying not to think about how Josh came here last night, storming into the hall and falling down on his knees beside him, and held his trembling shoulders all night long. Tyler tries to shut down the image of Josh's naked torso, thoughts about what does he look like without - that's a very dirty one - his damned pants and how yesterday everything could've gone completely the other way if Josh or Tyler himself were just a little bit different of a person. That could've happened, right _(because why not)_?

"I hope that one day you'll just leave those thoughts in the past. Use up all of those bad things that come to your mind", Josh murmurs, turning on the hub on the stove. Auto ignition clicks, a blue fiery flower blossoms right beneath the metallic surface of the kettle.

"Is it that necessary?" Tyler mumbles, rummaging through the contents of a first aid kit. Yes, if you didn't know, broken bones should be treated, and Josh's nasal septum is swollen so much that he breathes only through his mouth, Tyler still hopes that he can help a bit before going to the hospital.

"That's for your sake. So that it's easier for you to live this life, you know?" Josh says, leaning on the counter. His swollen nose is all red, and an almost transparent drop of blood makes its way down his cheek and neck. "Consider this caring about your future".

Yesterday Tyler sat in the corner of the hallway on the first floor with a razor in his hands and stared at the beige wall across him his eyes all glassy and watery. There was a moth hovering around the lamp, and the crackling rustle of his thin wings was just a pure torture for Tyler's eardrums.

Questioning your life - why do all of this? This is just the mood you get sometimes - to hide in the corner and try not to lose your sanity, not to let the shadow one take the lead, not to lose connection with reality, just look at the lamp and ' _the-razor-is-not-for-the-skin_ ' my lads, yes.

Yesterday Josh came to his place and opened the door downstairs with the key Tyler hid in this porcelain gnome on his lawn, he entered the house with a tornado of warm night May wind with its smell of dry leaves down the alleyways and frozen throughout the long winter soil, that is now getting warmer and softer everyday, the smell of dry grass and chamomiles, blossoming on the long-forgotten lawn. Yesterday Josh came and sat down beside Tyler, took away the razor, held his trembling shoulders and kissed his knuckles - just like they were hurt or something and, shit, that was so similar to how this all happens in those films.

Tyler thinks of how there's been too much fairy-tale-like friends in his life recently, but he wants to believe that Josh is unique - well, just because he's the only one who is so close to him geographically and any of his midnight calls won't go away unnoticed. There'll be something like ' _come, please, oh, god, come_ ', and then there'll be something like ' _ten mins, k?_ '.

Josh manages to get to his house from a completely other part of the city in ten goddamn minutes - like he's the Flash or something, like from those comic books that they all would read in elementary school and that Maddy would decorate her walls with. Superhero? Yes, just like that.

'You're a fucking superman of sorts, Jishwaa".

When Tyler first called him that Josh smiled - just like he always does, his eyes narrowing to the point when they become slits and his lips opening up to show his perfectly white teeth and also the tip of his tongue bit down like a matter of a habit. Josh smiled, yeah, and said something like ' _my Nan calls me that_ '.

'Jishwaa', yeah, strangely, it stuck, and now it all goes like this:

"Jish, we need to go to the hospital".  
"Jish, stop, I broke your nose".

And:

"Ty, that's honestly okay. It just needs some time to heal".

Tyler desperately wants to believe that there's nothing going on between them except for pure friendship, but nevertheless something is there, and it's crushing his metaphorical bones. This hottish-cold day in May dissolves the omission that is their communication, and they both don't want to change anything.

It's almost unbearable to stay on the porch, Tyler makes his signature tea - the one with ginger, honey, lemon and masala spices - and leaves it in the fridge until the sunset, and as this hot May evening fades away into the dusk, still shirtless Josh is sitting outside and sipping transparent yellowish cold tea from a litre glass, like it's the most natural thing on the Earth. He turns his head (in that moment shadows from leaves cross his face, and Tyler think about parallels with the Future and the Past), smiles and:

"That's really tasty, Ty".

Josh never ever calls Tyler the way other people do. No TyJo's, or Tylah or some other alternative. Ty - like something soft and gentle, very simple and familiar, Tyler has never felt like this before Josh. Rare moments when they talk tete-a-tete are like gems, because in message threads they tend to lose their identities under all the nonsense and untruthfulness, and when they are left offline, not covered by text, words, the thing that can define them as 'people' of some kind, they are left with their true selves, the ones that could've existed in some other dimension, and these 'Jishwaa' and 'Ty' appear to be their only true names, unadorned and unknown to the whole world, non-existent for other people; when they talk tete-a-tete it's a catharsis, purification from prejudice and commitments and, hell, Tyler wants to pray for these moments to happen more often.

"Thank you, Jish".

Just like that.

Tyler feels like the darkness goes away, and Josh's hair are blown away from his forehead by the warm wind - they form a crazy halo around his head, and it seems like some angelic creature instead of Josh is drinking this stupid ginger tea shirtless on his porch. God, if someone from college sees that, it'd be stupid. Tyler thinks about that, and about all the rumours about them dating or just occasionally hooking up that will spread around, and it seems so incredibly funny to him - people speculating about things they know nothing about. Tyler thinks about how it'd make such a huge difference in his school years, but now he's just laughing, truly laughing, and this is, he could swear on his own grave, must be the best moment of this entire week.

\- - -

"Ugh, I'm drinking. Again". Tyler's voice is shaky and his shaky hands barely manage to hold the phone near the ear.

"Okay", Josh's voice is drowning in white noise and electronic sounds, calm and listless, Tyler knows, what this is, yes. They've been studying together for a year and that's quite enough to know, what's up.

"You too", and this isn't even a question. Tyler smiles softly and imagines how Josh nods. God, he's all like that. "Jishwaa, are you my friend?"

Jishwaa, are you my friend?

"That's up to you to decide, Ty".

Ty  
Ty  
Ty  
Ty

Tyler nods. "Josh, I don't really control my speech right now, so I'll say it: you know me better, than any of them. But I'll never tell you that".

all my songs are about  
how we first met

Josh laughs at the other end, and then there's this usual:

"Meow".

Tyler sniffs, makes another sip of dry white wine from his glass. There's a broken car outside, and its hazard warning lights distress him a bit.

"Well, you know, as I'm a bit tipsy, too... You're cute as fuck".

Tyler stares at the car's lights. There's this sixteen minute long piece about a burning car and dystopian world, and sewers that are muddied with corpses, and rusty collapsing buildings playing from the speakers. Sometimes Tyler cannot escape worlds like this. Sometimes Tyler's dreams are about Josh and himself stuck in a snowstorm or under a mortar shelling. A short glimpse of the dog's corpse on the sticker from couple weeks ago flashes up in his memory. Tyler always dies in his dreams, but that's always for good, he knows, yes, he knows.

##### in my dreams i'm dying all the time

"If you were a girl I'd most certainly want to date you", Tyler responds. "But really, thank you, man".

"For what?"

"For changing my world, that seems like a good enough of a reason for me", Tyler syas, and Josh chuckles again, but this chuckle is full of _un-der-stand-ing_. Not malicious in the slightest. Without an intent to hurt. Tyler prays for that chuckle to last forever.

You scare the dark, shadowy  
part of me away, thanks.  
  
Speak to me.

Josh always smiles when he's talking to Tyler on the phone.

"Go to bed, okay?" Tyler imagines how Josh tangles his fingers in his hair, and bleached tentacle-like locks divide into some smaller ones and fall down onto boy's forehead.

"I can't, you know it".

"Lay down, and I'll sing you a lullaby", just like this. Tyler falls asleep after five minutes, and Josh is left with a sentence, echoing in his head: 'For changing my world, that seems like a good enough of a reason for me', and this aches in his ears like a bell ringing. Tyler is capable of things that Josh is most scared of, and that is hurting himself.

This sends shivers down Dun's spine. He goes to bed long after midnight, moths fly around near his darkened windows, it smells of wild raspberries and damp poplar bark, of 3AM cigarettes by the window, and the air is thin and transparent, like a glass. Josh feels its warm strings in his lungs, and that's probably the first time in his life when breathing this air is not a relaxing thing.

'cause you all have  
guns for hands, yeah.

\- - -

This staring contest kills Tyler. Yes, okay, there's hardly ever anything else to do on Snow White's lectures, but, God.

You look away, you lose - stupid and nonsense, infinite game. Josh has such dark eyes, that Tyler can't tell where the iris ends and the pupil begins, and that might simply be the death of Tyler, yeah, those eyes kill him, put him into this infernal cauldron, drowns him and invites to breathe head underwater, like some sort of liquid clamps, and there's nothing he can do to stop the reality from fading away into an abyss. Again - you look away, you lose, and Tyler is not losing this game.

He likes when it is like this. Josh's hair in this artificial lighting shine bright blueish-violet colour, God, he's a neon angel. That's the way Tyler would describe Josh in two words.

Tyler writes a song about being closer to God, and this means that he's in a desperate need for a guardian angel, and then there's Josh with his ink-black eyes and white bleached hair, banishing the shadowy part of his soul.

This staring contest is too long and perverse for Tyler. He looks away and smiles (he lost, if you didn't notice) when Josh's eyes become the only thing he is able to see.

"Don't laugh at me, man".

"I'm not laughing, though. Just a reflex".

"Meow".

\- - -

Tyler creates nonograms. It's a dark evening outside, and there's absolutely nothing else to do, only this dry pre-June wind whisking the leaves to the sewers, packing them up like a Christmas turkey or plushies.

Tyler creates these pictures from the small squares on graph paper, and pictures are always complex, and there're always two people and also those speech bubbles:

'Sorry'.  
'Thanks'.  
'No'.

Ty  
Ty  
Ty  
Ty

This afternoon they said goodbye to each other at the exit from the main college building - big four or so metres tall oakwood doors with a stunning carving that Tyler can't even open by himself sometimes - and Josh walks away in an absolutely glorious manner: with his perfect posture and a habit to smoke while walking.

Joshua William Dun is a personification of Tyler's whole aesthetics, wow, that _is_ a real existing person.

"Slept through every task I should've done today, well, fuck".

Tyler smiles seeing the message pop up. In the second tab Ryan Ross is inviting people to his party.

' _no bren fuck off_ ', Ross types.

Tyler sends a text to Josh:

"That's good, you haven't slept much this week".

Tyler sends a text to Ryan:

' _I'll come if you provide white wine and some personal space, a room maybe_ '.

And the replies are ' _will do my man_ ' and "Snow White is gonna kill me".

"I am supposed to write two essays and a project for him by tomorrow", Josh writes.

"Everything'll be fine. I guess, if you text him, he'll allow you to give it in later".

"Hope so".

Tyler looks outside: blue evening sky is lit up by the sun and the clouds are all pink and orange. He picks up his notebook and writes down: ' _The sky today is the color of Jishwaa's hair_ '. And it is, and that's so breathtaking; Tyler isn't sure he'll ever be able to describe it better than he already did in this short sentence.

"Wanna cuddle but the cat has abandoned me. Literally tried to nibble on my hand and cut my veins open and then ran away. Hate this bastard", Tyler smiles at his own sentence.

"Well, unlucky you. Cuddling rn", Tyler's heart skips a beat and stars to ache, that reminds him of how he was talking to Zack last weekend, and he told him something like: 'Dude, stop talking about Josh, it sounds like you're in love with him. Don't get me wrong, but I know you, and you're incapable of love in any romantic form'. Like he knew better, which he did, to be honest.

It sounds like you're in love with him. In love with

"Lucky you".

"Yeah".

Tyler rirses his hand to his forehead, then to his heart just because it fucking hurts, and he doesn't know why. Well, the truth is he does, but he's not ready to accept it yet.

"The best part is that you can't run away from yrself so I always can cuddle", this single sentence and, God, Tyler smiles, yeah, really.

"Don't like to cuddle myself".

You can't run from yourself.

Suddenly it's such a deep sounding phrase. Tyler wants to write a song about it. It's always like that, like Josh is his muse or inspiration. He just takes Tyler's thoughts and turns them to words, like that, easy, my man. Like Jesus turned water to wine.

"You know you can come and hug me for as long as you'd like to, right?"

And, wow, Tyler is almost ready to. The thing is he is still ( _always, actually_ ) has this psychological ban on coming to Josh's place.

It sounds like you're in love with him.

"That's the other side of the city and I have no money left".

"Pshh".

Just like this, like these are some basics from elementary school. Tyler looks at the darkened world outside his window: the house on the other side of the street is lit up by these light beige tones of the curtains on the windows, and the trees are wobbling their thin summery leaves in this gentle calm wind. He thinks of the warmth one gets being at home, and also - of ginger tea.

'That's really tasty, Ty'  
  
you can't run from yourself

\- - -

' _You know, these days I think a lot what is my special power_ '.

Ryan Ross, being a huge socially-awkward nerd by his nature, at parties becomes the biggest attention whore Tyler has ever seen. Ryan Ross manages to invite twenty people to his two-bedroom flat: new acquaintances, old friends from college and school, a bunch of unknown drunk girls, Brendon Urie, Tyler and Josh. And, yeah, he even manages to provide Tyler with a promised bottle of white wine and a whole room of personal space.

The moment other people's voices and faces mix together in his head, the moment he sees Josh, drinking vodka on brotherhood with some unknown blonde, Tyler reaches over to Ryan and says: 'I'm gonna go sit alone', and Ryan nods even though he probably doesn't quite understand what Tyler is saying, clinging onto Brendon, telling him something about the ' _good ol' days of their youth_ '. Tyler thinks that there was really no reason for them to break up: they kept their relationship, and cute-ish-rude nicknames, and continue to hook up from time to time, God, they even see each other more often than anyone else in their friend group.

Tyler sinks into the floor just beside the desk, picks up comic book - 'Watchmen', yeah, right, typical Ryan. He reads out loud:

"Dog carcass in alley this morning, ture tread on burst stomach..." and the words sound down his throat, balancing on his vocal chords as this reference to Satire VI:

'Who  
Who  
Who will watch the watchmen?'

Josh enters the room so silently it may seem that he's a ghost or some spirit, not a human being he really is. Josh enters the room and shuts the door, sits down beside Tyler and says nothing.

Tyler is thankful for that, God, no one knows how much he is. Josh rises his hand and - yeah, right - hugs him, but this grip of his is loose enough for Tyler to back off. Only Josh know how to do that.

Ty  
Ty  
Ty  
Ty

"Do you want me to leave?" he asks.  
"Do you need anything?" he asks.  
"Am I bothering you?" he asks.

'Well, no' is an answer to every question out of these. That's how it goes with Tyler: falling to the floor and sinking into carpets.

Panic attacks mean that he needs a desk and a beige-wall hall. Hysteric breakdowns - well, Josh know how to manage them.

It sounds like you're  
in love with him.

"I'm lost, Jishwaa".

"I've noticed".

"I'm so fucking lost".

Tyler thinks about the fact that before coming here to see him, Josh has most likely kissed that blonde in the kitchen. He frowns, chills go down his spine.

"And I'm also hella jealous. I know that I shouldn't be, but, fuck, I am. Sorry".

"Don't be".

Tyler recalls:

\- how Josh held his fingers tangled with his own all night long in the beginning of this May, and  
\- how he broke Josh's nose the next day (Josh now has this crook on his nose), and  
\- dog's corpse on the blue sticker on the bus' windshield, and  
\- **t h i s i s r e a l l y t a s t y , t y** , and  
\- the sky that is the colour of josh's hair and the talk about cuddles a couple weeks ago.

Tyler recalls and trembles. Josh tangles their fingers - just like in the beginning of the May - and says: "You know, these days I think a lot about what is my special power".

\- - -

"That's not right".

"What?"

"That's wrong. Like, all the thoughts I have, they're twisted", Tyler shoves his face into Josh's neck, and his white hair smell of whiskey, mint-scented shampoo, menthol cigarettes and Josh himself.

Tyler feels like drowning and floating at the same time.

"What are you thinking of?"

"If I told you, you'd laugh. Or stop talking to me and despise me forever". Josh's Adam's apple slightly vibrates as he speaks, and his hand, the one Tyler chose to rest his head on, is slowly caressing Joseph's hair. God, Tyler would never allow anyone to touch his hair, but this is different.

"What makes you think so, you can't know for sure". Josh opens one eye, looks down to Tyler. Bright morning has entered the room some time ago and now it's almost unbearably hot for those woolen socks Tyler has put on in the night. The sky outside is white - just like Josh's hair had been when the blue hair-colour went off, - and, wow, that's breathtaking, and in combination with cirrus clouds it looks just so much times more delicate, Tyler draws an analogy to blackberry-flavoured whipped cream. He thinks of how the sky is always the colour of Josh's hair.

Tyler looks at him and wonders how did they end up here - in this empty sunny bedroom in Ryan-attention-whore-Ross's flat the day after the party where Tyler hardly knew ten people, cuddling, yeah, cuddling the morning away. Josh tightens his grip on his shoulders, but not too strong so that Tyler doesn't feel like he's being strangled.

He remembers how he tried to hang himself.

Not exactly himself, but that's basically the same thing. No one, yes, God, no one believed him. Who would believe in those damned breakdowns? That's the shadowy one, and there's no such thing for normal people, like they're ghosts or vampires of sorts. So strange, yeah, strange.

your superpower is to get rid of my darker side

Josh's breath this morning smells of minty toothpaste, menthol cigarettes and - just a bit - of alcohol.

"I want to kiss you, okay? Just to feel, what it is. So that I can reject you forever and never think of you in that way, I just can't, I can't".

The sky outside is all in those cirrus clouds, and the sun crawls up and heats up their tangled feet in those angora socks, Tyler tries to push his red ones off but doesn't succeed so he gives up. Josh laughs, looking down. He's wearing blue ones, and in Tyler's opinion this is just perfect. The sky outside is bright blue, and bird are sitting on the eaves of the balcony and chirp through their thin beaks towards the morning sun. Tyler squints at the light and again hides his face in Josh's neck. The boy gently strokes his head, and the combination has become such a familiar thing throughout night: temples, then behind the ear, then the back of Tyler's hot head up to the nape - Tyler is about to purr or something.

"So are you going to kiss me or not?" Josh's voice throughout the night is just like this - hoarse and low, so that only Tyler can hear it, so that only he can understand, so that all of those superpowers and first love talks would stay between the two of them and not moulder away in thin dark air, so that it all had some meaning to it. Josh's voice throughout the night and now is almost whispering, with a lazy attempt to voice out the vowels.

"I'm scared".

"Hey, don't be".

Josh tangles his fingers into Tyler's hair on the side of his head, Josh just rises Tyler's head up - so that this white morning sunlight hurts his eyes - Joshua-fucking-Dun kisses Tyler for the first time, and this is fucking first of June outside, and the sky is so blue, that Tyler's eyes ache from looking at it, and somehow nothing matters - neither the heat pouring down onto their feet with the sunbeams, nor the fact that their breaths are not as minty-fresh as they could've been the normal morning, nor even the fact that it's hardly 6AM and they haven't slept a single minute.

Everything that matters right now for Tyler is that Josh's lips are much softer than he had imagined.

Josh's hand runs down his back, causing myriads of shivers to go down his spine underneath the white cloth of his tank-top, and this calm Tyler down so quickly, that he's almost about to fall asleep right there.

He can't stop. In fact, he won't ever be if they continue, but Josh's hand reaches the belt, and: "No! No-no-no-no-no!"

"Why?"

"First of all, it'd be very awkward to talk to you after this".

"And secondly?" Josh almost neglects the first option, and Tyler is left silent. "Ty?"

And Tyler just can't say anything, Josh kisses him again, and Tyler just thinks of what he can say.

"Tyler?"

"I can't, I..."

"What? Ty, everything is going to be fine if you say it, okay?"

"I can't".

Josh clicks his tongue in frustration and rolls his eyes, shoving his face in Tyler's neck and breathing heavily. It seems like a tear is running down Tyler's cheek (it really does, eventually falling down and sinking into a pillow near Josh's hair). He remembers how a couple hours ago he was half asleep and Josh strangled him to death in his sound and short dream. He remembers the same blue sky and cirrus clouds that were there.

"I'm a virgin, okay?" Tyler bites into his lower lip and tries not to look into Josh's eyes when the boy looks at him.

"Don't be afraid, okay? It won't hurt, trust me". Josh says, taking a long pause before that, and Tyler understands everything. That's so stupid, God. He nods, and Josh smiles, and his hands unbuckle Tyler's belt like it's the easiest thing Dun has done in his life.

\- - -

"I want you to hug me", Tyler looks down Josh's bed he's sitting on and scratches the surface of a gray cover with his finger. That surely did sound better in his head. Not so- impudent, almost.

"Come here", Josh is sitting at the head of the bed, staring at his laptop's bright screen. Gray - just like the covers on his owner's bed - cat is slowly making his way through to Josh's knees. "Basil, fucking hell, my dude! Fuck off!"

Josh is allergic to cat's hair. Just like that - he comes to the college with his eyes all red three working days out of five. To the questions like 'why the fuck even bother to have a cat?' he always responds in his cheeky, fourteen-years-old girl manner: 'Cats make us better people. Animals in general'.

That's why Tyler's birthday present from Josh is a tiny kitten they've named Ross. 'After this bastard of the night, uh-huh', Josh laughs while talking to Brendon on the phone that day. In that moment they are sitting on the bed in Tyler's bedroom, intertwining their fingers. 'Ty says hi. That rhymed. What? Yeah, he's right here', Josh winks at Tyler, bites his lip and smiles, and his eyes crease his cheeks. 'Brendon says hi to you, too', he whispers.

Now, almost eight months later, it's Josh's birthday, and Tyler gives him almost everything he has in this crystal ball. His thoughts, just like:

My head is a crystal ball.

Tyler's brain is all twisted, and he doesn't know, god, yes, he doesn't know, he's scared, losing it with every sentence he produces. In the mornings in college Josh puts his warm head on Tyler's nape and, towering over him like this Christ statue in Rio - transforms Tyler's thoughts into words like water into wine, and kisses his crown and doesn't forgive his thoughts about death.

Tyler goes out and chants poems from the roof of his house, and while he, balancing only on his toes in this warm July glister of Columbus's dry weather almost screams:

" _And I say: in the place where_  
The sun goes off to  
There's no death.  
And the sea comes back there  
As blue ink - just enough for your notebooks,  
As a wind that is bitter, as a blooming myrtle, as a mirroring surface",

While he bounces a bit with every step he takes and waves his hands around, pressing down where his heart is, then clenching his wrists, Josh is smiling, rubbing his shoulders with his dry warm palms.

" _I regret and repent_  
As the words are no money for me,  
But there's none of mine left,  
So I swipe them from other's poems", he whispers in unison, this level of understanding, God, it's worth millions of comets. Tyler doesn't know what he feels and he certainly doesn't know that about Josh. In the night his palm is in the boy's one, and their legs intertwine under the thin blanket. Josh possessively wraps his leg around Tyler's body, Josh lets Tyler to bury his face in his neck, Josh kisses so softly and gently, like he's trying not to affect this fine system that Tyler maintains in his soul.

Tyler doesn't know what he feels. He didn't feel affection for anybody for so long.

Josh is a smell of menthol cigarettes, shower gel, this huge bright flat on the other end of the city, wet and dusty grass after a short rain in summer. Josh is ' _this new sweater looks too good on you_ '. Josh is soft moaning near Tyler's neck and whispered name in Tyler's ears, yeah, with his voice so husky and warm: "Ty-Ty-Ty-Ty".

Josh is sitting there with his cat, that he's allergic to, on his lap and plays some stupidly easy game on his laptop. Tyler looks at him and there're so many questions in his head, so many odd and uncomfortable questions:

How did we get here?  
Why not earlier?  
Why me?  
Why him?  
Am I in love?

Josh calms him down after his nightmares and comes from the other end of the city. Holds his hand under the desk during lectures and touches his legs in cafés. Josh is like the Universe, and Tyler is obsessed with the thought of living in it.

"Thank you".

"Did you just start this again?"

The cat opens his eye and examines at Tyler with this almost confused look. He's not scared of him anymore, Tyler smells of Josh now, and Basil just accepts him so easily and doesn't want to run away.

"No, seriously though".

"You don't have to thank me".

"You get rid of my darker side".

Tyler's last panic attack was back then, in May. Tyler doesn't have razors anymore, and knives at home are just sitting on the counter, and his pistol is in the attic.

"You say that too often".

"You make me feel comfortable in my own skin".

And this is new and unusual for Tyler, though he knows that it's normal for the others. Josh ' _huh_ 's and looks at him with his black-void eyes, the sun is shining in his face, and Tyler watches his irises shrinking as his sight focuses.

Josh breathes in his ear at night, and Tyler's mum says something like ' _I trust him just beacuse he's Josh Dun_ '.

"Come here, do you want me to hug you or not?" Josh says, still staring Tyler down, and the boy thinks that this is somehow so natural. Josh turns on their favourite TV series and kisses Tyler's cheek like no one else can.

Josh's home smells of turmeric and something else. Tyler fells dizzy by just smelling that, and, yes, nothing is still clear somehow, but he desperately wants to believe that it won't go away just yet, leaving after itself nothing but the empty holes with dripping blood.


End file.
